Thomas Whitfield

Legal Director

Practice areas

• Commercial litigation
• Litigation and dispute management
• Technology, Media and Telecoms

Practice notes

Thomas is a principal associate in our Litigation & Dispute Management group. He specialises in commercial dispute resolution, with a wide range of experience covering international and domestic disputes arising from commercial contracts, fraud, shareholder issues, breaches of warranty and defamation (online, broadcast and print).

Thomas also frequently provides input on transactional matters, assisting with the drafting of commercial agreements where it is valuable to understand how a court is likely to interpret a particular provision or how a dispute is likely to arise; or advising on the exit from unfavourable commercial deals.

Thomas is experienced in providing strategic, commercial advice to resolve disputes without court proceedings or before they reach trial but also has extensive experience of court proceedings, including over two years of advocacy experience before qualification as a solicitor.

Thomas' recent experience includes acting for an international organisation in cross-border proceedings against a major global supplier; acting for a high-street name in the termination of overseas franchising and distribution operations, including acting in the resulting litigation; acting for a key outsourcer of a utility company, in a dispute with their customer, with whom they have an ongoing commercial relationship; successfully resisting a defamation claim pursued against a national infrastructure company; making a substantial recovery in a breach of SPA warranty claim, against a US based vendor and working with colleagues in the Czech republic to resist a related guarantee claim and claim in related insolvency proceedings.

Thomas was seconded to Tyco, as Acting Regional Counsel (UK & Ireland), in 2012.